Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

  The first two hours went smoothly and Mackay calculated they had covered about a mile. They were making unbelievably good time. They worked hard to move silently, for only stealth could preserve the critical element of surprise. The men were little more than shadows as they penetrated the darkness, moving parallel to a stream. Their night vision goggles helped them to some extent and the rain was cooperating. Then the terrain grew rough and they started to slip and fall in the darkness. “Better call a halt,” Kamigami said. Mackay agreed but the captain leading the team chose to press on for another hour before establishing a bivouac until morning. The captain keyed his GPS to check their position. They were in a valley seven miles from Chiang’s compound. Kamigami checked his watch—they had twenty-five hours to cover those seven miles.

  “If we move out at first light,” Mackay said, “and reach here”—he pointed to a spot five miles away where the valley they were in opened onto a flood plain less than two miles away from Chiang’s compound—“we can hunker down for the rest of the day before moving into position under the cover of darkness. That’ll cut down our chances of being discovered and still give us plenty of time to make contact.”

  “If this rain keeps up, that’s going to be a pretty hard five miles tomorrow,” the captain said. He gave a little snort. “We can always put the sergeant major at the head and let him lead.”

  Not a bad idea, Mackay thought.

  The fourteen men that made up Fastback were ready to go at first light but the rain was driving down again. The men moved out. It was not the jungle underbrush that hindered their movement but the mud. Their boots were sticking and sliding and every step was an effort. It became a slogging contest and the men were rapidly tiring. The spot they were trying to reach was on the slope of the limestone ridge, called a karst, that formed the northern wall of the valley they were in. Kamigami studied his map as they moved and calculated their progress. We ain’t going to make it, he thought. Then he slipped and fell, splattering the man behind him with a barrage of muck. He heaved himself to his feet and wiped his plastic-covered map clean. It was time to change. Then he saw it. On the map, two contour lines about one third of the way up the slope of the karst widened, telling him that the slope was not as steep. There’s a shelf up there paralleling our direction of travel, he decided, remembering his last tour in Vietnam. Probably much more rocky up there with better drainage and less foliage. Time to do some mountain climbing.

  At the next halt, he showed Mackay and the captain his map. “If you’re right,” the captain said, “there won’t be much canopy to hide under.”

  “Who’s going to be up there with us?” Kamigami asked. “And no one is going to be flying around in this weather.” Five minutes later, Fastback was moving up the ridge, Kamigami in the lead. The mud quickly gave way to more solid footing as the vegetation thinned out. He set a blistering pace, making the men follow him. Soon they were angling along the ridge making good time.

  Six hours later they were nearing the end of the karst formation and almost at the spot where they wanted to hide when Kamigami caught the smell of cooking. His left hand shot up above his head, his arm fully extended and palm forward. The men halted and silently took cover. They watched as Kamigami crouched then disappeared into the underbrush. Within minutes he was back and raised his MPS submachine gun above his head with one arm, the barrel parallel to the ground and pointing in front of him. He had the enemy in sight.

  Kamigami lowered the MP5 and raised his right fist to his waist and rotated his forearm several times in a horizontal clockwise circle. It was the signal to prepare for action. He drew out the black anodized Bowie knife he preferred to carry in combat and held the blade upright with the forefinger extended. He was ordering an immediate action drill they had practiced many times.

  Silently, two men shed their rucksacks and moved out, one above the trail and one below. Kamigami moved forward in a crouch, becoming a shadow. His eyes drew into a narrow squint when he could see the lean-to where the cooking aroma was coming from. One of the men appeared on his right, gave a slight nod, pointed to the lean-to, and held up two fingers. He could see two people inside. Kamigami passed the signal to the man on his left, who could not see the lean-to but was contracted to keep Kamigami in sight. Kamigami moved closer to the rear of the lean-to. Now he could see that it was an observation post that in good weather had a commanding view of the valley and flood plain. That meant there was a radio inside.

  A happy babble of laughter erupted from the lean-to and a young boy, no more than fifteen or sixteen, emerged. He tugged his poncho into place and took a few steps down the slope, toward his number two man. Kamigami didn’t know or care why the boy had come out, probably to answer a call of nature, but it was a mission he would never complete. A dark shadow moved from behind a large bush and fell in behind the boy. Kamigami saw an arm come up and jerk the boy’s head back as a knife flashed across his throat. Then the shadow dropped the body. It was a mistake. The man should have supported the body and lowered it silently to the ground, holding the chin back so the neck would be stretched tight. With the tension released, Kamigami could hear a loud gurgling sound much like a perking coffeepot.

  Shit! he raged to himself. He credited it to “buck fever,” the first-time eagerness when a hunter botches the kill. But their luck held and the second person in the lean-to, puzzled by the unfamiliar noise, scrambled out and ran directly into Kamigami. She was a pretty young girl, no older than the boy, only wearing a T-shirt that barely covered her bare bottom. Kamigami didn’t hesitate and before she could scream, his huge fist smashed into her chest, crunching bones and knocking all her breath out. He held her up by the hair as he drove his knife into her body, slightly below her heart, the tip angled up. He lowered the body carefully, his face an expressionless mask.

  The third man was into the lean-to. He came out holding a radio still buttoned in its case. “She never thought of using it,” he said.

  The second man came up. “You’d make a good rattlesnake, Sergeant Major,” he said. There was respect in his voice. “What where they doing up here?”

  “An observation post,” Kamigami said. “He probably brought his girlfriend along to help pass the time. Just two kids looking for a chance to screw.” They scouted the area to make sure they were alone.

  Mackay came up with the rest of the team and checked their position on the GPS. They were less than a hundred meters from their objective. “They must have chosen this place for the same reason we did,” he said. “We can stay here until it’s dark.” The captain ordered two men to reconnoiter the trail that led down to the valley and to set up an outpost to make sure they would not receive any unannounced visitors. Most of the men were silent, their faces stone hard, as they stared at the two dead teenagers.

  The tension eased when Kamigami picked up the two bodies, one under each arm, and carried them down the slope. He found a fold in the terrain and gently laid them out before covering them with the boy’s poncho. He spread some brush over the shallow grave and sat down. For a few minutes he stared into the mist that obscured the flood plain and Chiang’s headquarters below him. The rain started to come down again, this time a deluge. Then: “I’m sorry.” He rose and rejoined the men.

  Over Thailand, South of the Burma ADIZ

  The second RC-135 monitoring Chiang’s communications had been established in the same orbit for over six hours and the first ship had returned to Kadena, its base in Okinawa. It was a boring mission and so far no unusual transmissions had been detected and all was normal. The tedium was broken and the technicians in the rear perked up when they monitored encrypted SatCom transmissions from the two teams updating their progress with situation reports. Fastback was safely concealed two miles from Chiang’s headquarters, and Bigboot was in trouble.

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  Leo Cox was a tired man and he envied the President’s ability to go to bed and fall instantly asleep. During all his years in the
Air Force, he had never been able to sleep when an operation was under way and some deep inner need drove him on. Nothing had changed. He had gone home the previous evening but rest had eluded him and he had finally returned to the Situation Room in the White House at midnight, sent Mazie home to get some rest, and he monitored Jericho’s progress. Some progress, he told himself, as he waited in the hall outside the President’s bedroom with the morning’s news. The door opened and Charles, Pontowski’s valet, motioned him in, directing him to the small office off the bedroom that the President liked to use in the morning. Cox found him looking fresh and rested but far from relaxed. “It’s going to be a long day, Mr. President,” Pontowski nodded in agreement. “Tosh had a comfortable night,” Cox continued, “and is still asleep.”

  “Was that from Edith Washington or Dr. Smithson?” Pontowski asked. He had discovered that Washington’s observations were as reliable as Smithson’s and much more concise.

  “Smithson,” Cox replied. “He’s staying at the hospital now around the clock.” Cox eagerly accepted the cup of coffee Charles handed him. He needed the caffeine jolt to stay alert. “The rest of the family arrived last night.”

  Pontowski drew in a deep breath. “Not much longer,” he said, his voice low and dark.

  Cox turned to the next subject. “Jericho is in trouble. One of the teams has not reached its initial position.”

  Pontowski glanced at the carriage clock on the mantel and quickly made the conversion to local time in Burma—six-forty-five in the evening—which meant they had nine hours and fifteen minutes to get into position if the attack was to go off on time. Should he abort the raid before then? Not yet, he decided, only if they are discovered and lose the element of surprise. “What’s the problem?”

  “Rain, sir,” Cox answered. “It gave us the cover We needed to insert the assault teams but it has slowed them down moving into position.”

  “The rain slowed only one team, Leo, only one. Who’s experiencing difficulty?”

  “Bigboot, sir. They’re the team that initiates the assault, blows one of the walls and seals the compound off.”

  “Are the hostages still alive?”

  “At last report,” Cox answered.

  “We’ll let it run for now. Stay on top of it.” He didn’t tell Cox that he had made the decision to abort the raid at the first sign of serious trouble. Bigboot’s delay in moving into position was about all he would tolerate. The two men went over the day’s schedule before they walked down to the Oval Office.

  Six hours later, Dr. Smithson called Cox. He was worried about Tosh’s condition and asked for the President to come to the hospital.

  The distance from the White House to the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland, is seven miles, perhaps twenty-five minutes by motorcade or a few minutes by helicopter. Pontowski’s staff opted for helicopter because the flying weather was good and security was easier to provide. Only a few minutes in a northwest direction. Pontowski appreciated the dedication and expertise that went into the planning and execution of that short flight. It was a lesson he had learned many years before.

  1944

  RAF Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, England

  The telephone call for Zack came at nine-thirty in the morning. “Zack, darling,” Willi said, her voice captivating and thrilling him with its hidden promises. “I’m on an errand today and will be free tonight. It would be a shame to waste it, don’t you think?” He stammered out a reply, certain that he sounded like an inane idiot. He knew he was blushing. “Good,” she continued, satisfied with his reply—whatever it was. “Can you meet me at the Swan and Partridge in Rickmans Worth? It’s a pub in the center of town. You can’t miss it. Say seven o’clock? I’ll arrange dinner, if you’re hungry.”

  He told her that he would be hungry and she hung up, leaving him filled with anticipation and guilt. He couldn’t put aside the vague feeling that he was betraying Chantal. Does love always get so mixed up? he thought. Or is this just sex and lust? He was a very confused young man and thankful that he had work to keep his mind occupied. Pickard had detailed him to work on the Amiens raid and he had to make the short trip to 2 Group headquarters at Uxbridge to finish planning the attack.

  The man in charge of the planning was a tall squadron leader with a classic RAF handlebar mustache. Heavy burn scars on the right side of John Maitland’s face had destroyed his good looks but not his buoyant personality. Zack wasn’t sure if the constant tick that played at Maitland’s right eye was due to neurological damage suffered when his Mosquito crashed and burned on landing or the result of combat fatigue. Still, he enjoyed working with Maitland and had learned much about the details that went into a successful mission. When the planning was complete, the two men sat in the room cluttered with detailed charts and reconnaissance photos. At the center of the room was the target model of the prison. “What have we overlooked?” Maitland asked. He ticked off the attack:

  “Weather—wretched but out of our hands.

  “Timing—dinner starts at noon and the attack is scheduled to come off at twelve-oh-three. Right at the conclusion of the blessing no doubt.

  “The bomb run—three squadrons, six Mossies from each squadron, attack in sections of three. Three minutes between squadrons. First squadron breaches the outer walls, second squadron goes after the main building at a right angle to the first’s attack, and the third squadron held in reserve to clean up what is missed.

  “Enemy defenses—expect Focke-Wulfs out of Abbeville. The ack-ack at the Luftwaffe base at Amiens-Glisy will present a problem to your second squadron when they make a left-hand circuit to get the spacing they need. That will bring them fairly close to Amiens-Glisy but heads up, please, and you should be fine.

  “Fighter escort—twelve Typhoons from One-ninety-eight Squadron stationed at Manston, rendezvous over Littlehampton. The Tiffies should discourage any Luftwaffe interest while you’re over the target and most vulnerable. Also, they can escort any stragglers back to Manston for an emergency landing.

  “Deception—we need to keep Jerry guessing as to the target. He will know we’re out and about but if we’ve done the navigation right, he won’t tumble to Amiens until the last possible minute. And then he will probably decide that we’re going after the railroad marshaling yards.

  “Coordination with the Maquis—a chap will be here who can relay the word to the Resistance when you launch. The French have to be ready to move into the area five minutes after the bombing to assist the lucky bastards that make it through the walls.”

  “It should all work,” Zack allowed. “Was all this your idea?”

  “Not quite,” Maitland replied. “Pick had a hand in it. The guiding hand, you might say. All very brilliant.” Maitland turned his attention to the scale model. Amiens prison was a sixty-foot-high building shaped like a cross that stood in a rectangle of walls twenty feet high and three feet thick. “I’m quite beyond it when it comes to the ‘cookies,’ he admitted.

  Zack was an expert on bombs, or “cookies” as the RAF called them, and blast effects. “Each Mossie will be armed with four, five-hundred-pound semi-armor-piercing bombs fused with eleven-second-delay detonators,” he explained. “I read an inspiring report on some of the colorful things that can happen when a SAP is tossed at speeds greater than two hundred and forty miles per—fractured bomb casings or it bounces back up at you. Still, a very nice present for the Germans. We’ll have to tell the pilots to keep their release airspeed under two-forty. The walls should not present a problem.” He pointed to the spots on the northern and eastern walls where they planned to punch holes for the prisoners to escape. “Bombing the guards’ barracks,” he said, pointing to the one story building tacked onto the head of the cross-shaped main building, “will be more of a problem. The aircraft will have to lift over the walls and then immediately skid their bombs into the barracks.

  “But it’s the collateral damage we can expect when we bomb the main building that has me most worried. The
most critical place is here.” He pointed to the corner where the long and short arms of the prison building formed a cross. “We’ve got to hit it here to free the Resistance workers and at the same time give them an exit close to the breaches in the walls. Our bombs are going to kill many of the very people we are trying to save.”

  Maitland stared at the model. “Is there an alternative?”

  “No, not really,” Zack admitted. They dropped the subject.

  “Anything else?” Maitland asked.

  “I’m worried about the ‘boys from Abbeville.’ I was wondering if we could have a Mossie or two do a daytime Intruder mission on their base and spread a little Moskitopanik around. It would keep them preoccupied.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Maitland said.

  “By the way,” Zack asked, “will you be going on the raid?”

  “I would if the quacks would let me,” Maitland replied. His right eyelid twitched furiously and Zack could see his hands shake. “They say my nerves are shot. Probably right.”

  Am I going to end up like Maitland? Zack thought, shaking, scarred for life, willing to carry on but sidelined. How much longer do I have?

  Maitland’s face cracked into a grotesque smile. He knew what Zack was thinking. “Not to worry, this won’t happen to you. You’re a survivor, old boy. Obviously, meant for better things than this. Come on, let’s run your latest brain wave about a daytime Intruder mission by Pick.”